There was a nihilist I knew on some liberty minded message boards. Let's call her Lucy.
The more I messaged this Lucy "person," the more I'm convinced it is a fake avatar created by someone who is tired of the regular debates involving morality and religion.
It must be a form of twisted entertainment by her creator. Probably some fat white guy living in Texas who has nothing better to do than read every iconoclastic book ever printed.
My impression of Lucy's world-view is summarized as "Nothing unreal exists," although she would never actually say something so remedial.
She equates morality to religion. She asserts that all the different kinds of morality amount to denominations thereof. Her evidence is that morality is widely varied throughout the world and in each context. That if it was real, it would have a more uniform set of tenants to point to its existence. Since it is different in every time and place, it simply doesn't exist. It's made up.
This is an unfalsifiable claim because if you refute it, you are a dogmatic and thus, demonstrating the evidence.
That alone should raise some eyebrows. But the main thing that refutes nihilism is the fact that nihilists don't commit suicide.
Why can't you have normal existential angst like all the other boys?
In my opinion they think like "If it means nothing at all why bother to kill yourself?" Interesting never thought about that before. :)
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Right, but if nothing matters, why bother pointing that nothing matters?
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In deep down I think that there is a despise to life itself in nihilism. So pointing that nothing matters is kind of a statement. I know it contradicts the full concept of not caring for anything or statements. But in subconscious that's the statement they rely on.
I am not sure I express clearly the thing in my mind. :)
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Matters? To whom or to what?
Also your conclusion here is faulty. Why not take it for example that if nothing matter why not ceaselessly point out that nothing matters?
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To play the devil's advocate for a minute: you can be a nihilist and believe in causal determanism. I do not commit suicide simply becsuse im causally determined not to; like a machine that simply can't go against its programming. Not to mention that if there is no point to existence, what point is there in suicide. 😜
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I get it. It's a good point, but I'm not worried that they don't commit suicide. I'm glad they don't.
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Well yeah haha. But I mean nihilism might be right; best not to think about it and just live in the moment. Queue exestentialism.
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Yeah, nihilism probably is right, but it's no fun. Our human imagination might be a genetically-rooted part of our instinct to survive. Instead of dwelling on nihilism and committing suicide, we instead make up all kinds of stories and delusions that make life entertaining and fun. I do it myself on a daily basis. Hell, the whole entertainment industry is mostly an anti-nihilistic, profit-making opiate of the masses.
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Definitely, we are pre disposed yo not 'believe' nihilism even if we csn gey there intelectually. Have you ever read The Hero With a Thousand Faces?
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No, but I've read Robert Trivers', an evolutionary biologist, take on self-deception. He would agree with you.
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I'll have to check it out; that shit fascinates me.
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There's a few things to pick apart here.
Firstly, the assertion that morality varies is challengeable. There are ways around this, citing common ground between many religions, etc. This is actually often a case made by atheists ad there's plenty written on it.
However let's say that it's given that morality does in fact vary, why does it's variance make it "made up"? Why can there not be many moralities? Lucy would have to have the position that for morality to be "real" it must be universal, and so reject the idea of moral relativism. My only point here is that it is not easily dismissed and has been debated for thousands of years.
"Made up" is a put down of the highest order. Is music "made up"? Are numbers "made up"? I guess the idea here is something that exists outside ourselves, perhaps that is the only think which is not made up. Here is where the idea of morality very much rests on belief in a God because what else so concerned with human ideas could be relevant.
If I were in your shoes I would probably add to the Texan nerd stereotype the idea that they are deeply religious, probably messing with you for fun.
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The claim is not unfalsifiable - on set of morality amongst all the sets could be right, and mixing empiricism into it does not make her case better. I was thinking the same way as a teenager, until one night I violently woke up with the realisation that the Christians, or the Muslims or the Scientologists could be right and the rest wrong...
Being a sceptic is a rather tragic endeavour.
It is said that only religious people can argue logically for their moral on the other hand, because logic needs a foundation like math needs numbers - but that obviously does not mean that you can not have a moral even though you are not a believer - you can, for example, base it on a whim or whatever.
I also think that it is possible to live without feeling a meaning with life. Dogs and cockroaches do a good job in that... so why not nihilists.
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I mostly consider myself an absurdist. Which i think is an offshoot of nihilism. I haven't read deeply on the subject, I just go along being me.
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I once actually identified as a nihilist. I don't believe that existence has any inherent meaning set in stone that I can find. I eventually came to the conclusion that it is up to me to find my own meaning in my life, and that is how I find purpose in what I often see as a pointless world. So essentially, I suppose I am an existentialist.
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Nihilism (from the Latin nihil, nothing) whose main characteristic is a radical skeptical view of the interpretations of reality, which annihilates values and convictions.
And if among millions of spermatozoids I was chosen to live, I have to make my life happen and make sense.
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